When dealing with the lying, conniving, duplicitous media, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke never pulls his punches.

Case in point: When Daniel Bice, a so-called “political watchdog columnist” for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, sent him an email last week questioning him about the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office recent decision to revoke Clarke’s security detail, the former sheriff fired back with a veritable uppercut to the jaw.

“‘F–k you and the horse you rode in on.’ I’m David Clarke and I approve this message,” Clarke wrote from his private email address (except he didn’t use dashes).

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We only know about this email exchange because Bice later shared a screenshot of it to Twitter. I guess he’s some sort of masochist who derives pleasure from being publicly humiliated? Either that or he honestly thought sharing it publicly would somehow embarrass Clarke instead. Fat chance.

Last month Clarke abruptly resigned from his post with the sheriff’s office to join a pro-Trump super PAC. This in turn inspired acting Sheriff Richard Schmidt to formally revoke his security detail earlier this month.

“After the initial transition, the security detail is no longer at the former sheriff’s home,” Schmidt’s spokeswoman, Fran McLaughlin, announced last week, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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That’s perfectly fine and, in fact, fair. What’s not as fair is Bice’s insinuation in his rude email to Clarke that the money spent on protecting him had been a waste of taxpayer funds.

“It has cost taxpayers more than $226,000 to provide this security to your house,” he had written. “Was this a wise use of taxpayer dollars?”

Considering that the security detail was put in place to deal with a “multiplicity of threats” against Clarke — as Schmidt put it — I would say it was a very wise use of taxpayer funds. And I’m sure the former sheriff would agree.

Now that he’s resigned his post with the city to pursue another calling, however, it’s only fair that he pay for his own private security.

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That said, the most stunning part about this story is Bice’s reaction to the former sheriff’s blunt reply:

I've been writing about him for 15 years. We know each other very well. I thought the email was funny.